Brighton does a good line in shows, but every so often one pops up that feels properly rooted in the place we live. Enchanting Forest – landing at Brighton Dome on 20th November – is exactly that: a mash-up of music, film, folklore and real Sussex landscapes, created by a gang of local artists, ecologists and musicians who actually spend time out in the woods they’re singing about.
The whole thing comes from Forests Without Frontiers, the Brighton-based non-profit set up by DJ and producer Nicoleta Carpineanu (you might know her as Nico de Transilvania). She’s been quietly building a movement that blends creativity with conservation, planting trees while making art that reminds people why nature is worth fighting for. Enchanting Forest is her biggest Sussex project yet.
What you’re getting on the night isn’t a straight gig, or a straight film, or a straight anything. It’s an immersive mix: a short film, a preview of a new album, and live performances from folk singers, a local choir, the New Note Orchestra (the brilliant recovery-led orchestra), singer Alice Russell, poet Niall Hollaert and even members of the Copper family – the dynasty who’ve been keeping Sussex folk songs alive for generations.
The music itself is stitched together from recordings made out in the weald, the Downs and by the sea – spots like Ebernoe Common and Kingley Vale, where nightingales, beetles and ancient yews get just as much airtime as the musicians. Those nature recordings are woven into electronic compositions and reimagined Sussex folk pieces, so you get something that feels both new and rooted in something older than all of us.
There’s proper science sneaking through, too: sonic-systems academic Dr Alice Eldridge has been involved, and Sussex Wildlife Trust have been on hand to ground the project in the real ecological work happening in the county, from kelp restoration to woodland protection.
If you want a flavour before the night, check out ‘Seeds of Love‘ – it’s built around one of England’s oldest folk songs and layered with sounds captured in Ebernoe.
Forests Without Frontiers has form, by the way. Nico’s earlier work, Interbeing, explored similar themes in Romania and won the Cambridge Conservation Initiative’s Endangered Landscapes Art Prize. The organisation has planted more than 200,000 trees across Europe and thousands here in Sussex, with a new project coming in Wales this autumn.
But Enchanting Forest is very much a Sussex story – one told through music, myth, field recordings and a community of artists who genuinely care about this corner of the world. If you’re up for a night that feels different from the usual gig circuit, this one’s worth grabbing a ticket for.
Thursday 20th November; 7.30pm; from £19.50
brightondome.org
